In recent years, a metal oxide having semiconductor characteristics, which is called an oxide semiconductor, has attracted attention as a novel semiconductor material having high mobility as in the case of polysilicon or microcrystalline silicon and having uniform element characteristics as in the case of amorphous silicon. A metal oxide is used for various applications. For example, indium oxide is a well-known metal oxide and used as a material of a transparent electrode included in a liquid crystal display device or the like. Examples of the metal oxide having semiconductor characteristics include tungsten oxide, tin oxide, indium oxide, and zinc oxide. Transistors in which a channel formation region is formed using such a metal oxide having semiconductor characteristics are already known (Patent Documents 1 and 2).